Gopaldhara Wonder Tea First Flush 2014 from Darjeeling Tea Lovers

GOPALDHARA WONDER ‘GOLD’ one of the most popular tea among the Darjeeling Tea Connoisseurs. A very limited stock is manufactured from the YOUNG TEA PLANTATIONS of this garden and this particular lot has been tagged as GOLD due to the supreme quality.

The dry leaf looks a lot more like a green tea than a black tea. The aroma is pleasantly floral. Because the leaves are more “green” than black, I would advise not going higher than 195°F to brew this tea – that’s what I used and I’m quite pleased with the result. This is my usual ‘go-to’ temperature when it comes to Darjeeling teas, because they don’t seem to be as fully oxidized as other black teas are, even though they are usually categorized as a black tea. Darjeeling teas tend to be a little more delicate and should be treated differently.

I brewed these beautiful pale green, silvery tipped leaves in my Breville One-Touch. I used 2 bamboo scoops of leaf and 500ml of water heated to 195°F, and steeped the leaves for 2 ½ minutes. As I said before, I’m quite pleased with the resulting tea. Delicious!

Then again, I’ve been blown away by all the teas that I’ve tried from this company. Let me tell you, Darjeeling Tea Lovers KNOWS Darjeeling tea. If you’re a devotee of Darjeeling tea, this is a company you should be exploring. They have some of the very best Darjeeling teas I’ve ever tasted.

And this Gopaldhara Wonder Tea is indeed a wonder! Wonderful, that is! Sweet, crisp and refreshing! The liquid is somewhere between gold and green. It’s much paler than many Darjeeling teas that I’ve had this year. And it has a “greener” sort of taste to me. It tastes lighter and cleaner than a typical “black” Darjeeling. This doesn’t have that “muscatel” flavor that you might expect from a Darjeeling. This tea seems more focused on the sweet, delicate notes of flower. I taste notes of jasmine! Nice!

There are also delicate vegetal notes. Not so much vegetable (as in steamed veggies) as it is lightly grassy. But this is a sweet grassy note, not a bitter one. The sip starts out sweet and I pick up on the floral notes right away. Toward mid-sip, some of those lightly sweet, grassy notes start to come into focus. The sip ends with a floral note that is jasmine-esque, and this flavor lingers into the aftertaste. There is a light astringency at the start of the cup, and this astringency does develop as I continue to sip, but never becomes a really strong or what I would call astringent tea, instead, it’s a moderate astringency that leaves the palate feeling clean and invigorated.

An excellent afternoon tea – break out this tea when you have special guests over that you’re looking to impress! Or save it for an afternoon when you have time to reflect – this is one of those teas that I’d call meditative! The kind of tea that I want to enjoy when I don’t have a 101 different things to do … or the kind of tea I want to enjoy when I do have 101 things to do but I want to forget about them and just enjoy a moment for me!

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Anne (aka the Mad Tea Artist) has celebrated her 29th birthday for many years now. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her hubby and her youngest daughter. Her oldest daughter is married and has bestowed Anne with the proud title of "Gramma" and her grandson is about the cutest boy you ever did see.
Anne started her journey with tea as a casual drinker and became more serious about her tea drinking when she realized that she couldn't drink coffee. Shortly thereafter, she started becoming obsessed with the beverage and she started creating small-batch, artisan blends of tea that she sold online as LiberTEAS. After a few years, she realized she wasn't cut out to be the sole proprietor of a business so she closed LiberTEAS and started reviewing teas online. She met Jennifer through another blog that they both reviewed for and they decided to start their own review blog. This review blog!
Throughout her journey as a tea reviewer, she discovered 52Teas and became enamored with the idea of creating a new tea every week. When the founder of 52Teas decided he wanted to move on, he offered the business to Anne but knowing that she wasn't cut out to be a sole proprietor, she instead offered the company to her oldest daughter who employs her as the Mad Tea Artist for 52Teas!